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March 02, 2014|Michele Jacklin, Trinity College, Greater Hartford

Paul Assaiante, who has enjoyed unparalleled success as coach of the Trinity College men's squash team, winning 14 national championships in 16 years, will deliver a lecture titled, "College Athletics Today: Losing Ownership of Their Journey."

The lecture is Thursday, March 6 at 4:30 p.m. at the George A. Kellner Squash Center in the Ferris Athletic Center on the Trinity campus, 300 Summit Street, Hartford. The talk is free and open to the public.

Assaiante now has the title of Paul D. Assaiante professor of Physical Education, holding a chair that was endowed by the College in 2011 with gifts from alumni, parents and friends in honor of Assaiante, who is also coach of the men's tennis team.

The Paul D. Assaiante Professorship of Physical Education is the first endowed professorship of athletics at Trinity. Under Assaiante's leadership, the men's squash team notched victories in 252 consecutive matches, the longest winning streak in collegiate varsity sports history.

This year, Trinity's men's squash team was the runner-up to Harvard in the national championship match. However, the Trinity men's team took top honors in 2013.

Prior to that, the squash team had won the national championship from 1999 to 2011. The team's undefeated win streak, which was broken in 2012, had been the longest in collegiate varsity sports history, besting the Yale men's swimming team streak of 201 wins from 1940 through 1961.

A resident of West Hartford, Assaiante got his start in coaching at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point before arriving at Trinity in 1994. He has been the coach of the U.S. national squash team as well as the U.S. Olympic Coach of the Year.

In 2010, Assaiante wrote, with co-author James Zug, "Run to the Roar: Coaching to Overcome Fear," which told the story of one of the most successful dynasties in the history of U.S. collegiate varsity sports. Of the book, Assaiante said, "This is not a book about squash. It is about leadership. It is about pride, about instinct, control, about anger management, about talent, about mentoring. These are universal issues that every parent and every coach faces."

The book is centered on a single contest - the February 2009 national championship match against Princeton University. But the book is also about Assaiante's infectious passion for the sport, his successful coaching philosophy (face your fears head-on), and how he recruits talented young men from around the world, molds them into a team and drives them to achieve unparalleled success.

In October 2010, Trinity dedicated its tournament-level tennis facilities in honor of Assaiante.